And So Life Goes On
by miyatree
Summary: KakaIru. "...He’s there every morning, you know..."


Iruka breathed in slowly; content to keep his eyes shut tight as the morning sun streamed through the window and on to their bed. He rolled over and buried his face in to a pillow, inhaling. In another few minutes his alarm clock would go off, he knew, but he didn't mind. He always had the habit of waking up just before it. Kakashi hated it, because he always programmed his body to wake up just before Iruka, thus resulting in him losing a few minutes of sleep. Iruka smiled.

It seemed Kakashi had already left, though, and Iruka had to strain to remember if he had a mission today. He was sure Kakashi hadn't mentioned anything, so perhaps he was somewhere else in the house.

With a yawn, the brunet sat up and rubbed his eyes, which he found were quite sore. The alarm clock chose that moment to sound off, and on instinct he flung his hand out and slammed it on the 'off' button. Kakashi didn't like loud noises in the morning.

Speaking of the advanced jounin, Iruka looked in the direction of the kitchen. He wondered if Kakashi was trying his hand at making breakfast; he'd attempted to make bacon about a month ago, and the end result had turned in to a disaster. Iruka had woken up to a guilty looking man holding out a bowl of cereal. Iruka had later found out that the destroyed bacon had been fed to Kakashi's nin dogs.

Sliding in to a pair of loose pants, Iruka tripped his way towards the kitchen, not noticing any smells. As he came around the corner, he frowned. Kakashi wasn't there either, and there was no note on the table.

"Kakashi?" Iruka asked, confusion lacing his voice. He waited for a response and when he received none, threw on a green t-shirt that was hanging from the kitchen chair. He'd just have to go search for the man, then.

As he locked the door to their house he ran through a list of places Kakashi might be, finally narrowing it down to four: the training grounds, Ichiraku Ramen, Naruto's, and the memorial stone.

After making a brief stop at the training grounds, he sighed at the sight of Maito Gai kicking furiously at a tree, his feet making deep indents in the rough bark. The self-proclaimed Green Beast of Konoha had been in a sad state for the past week, and Iruka thought it might be because his student and protégé, Rock Lee, was out on a very dangerous mission and was a day late returning. Iruka could sympathize. He always hated it when Naruto or Kakashi were away.

He left for Ichiraku Ramen, where he found Sakura, but not Kakashi. He waved to her and she gave him a curious look before she waved back, eyes shockingly sad. He reminded himself to come back and talk to her later on. She looked like she could use a friend.

When he got to Naruto's, he was a little out of breath but he was quick to recover, firmly knocking on Naruto's front door. He had to knock a few more times before he finally heard clumsy footsteps making their way to the door. As it opened, Naruto gave a soft smile at the sight of his former sensei standing there.

"Iruka-sensei!"

"Good morning, Naruto. How are you feeling?" Iruka asked, holding back a laugh at the obvious need for sleep in the younger man's eyes. "You look tired."

"Well, yeah…" Naruto shifted, face becoming sad for a moment. "How about you, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka nodded, placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting hold. "I'm fine. I don't want to keep you long, so I guess I'll cut straight to the point. Kakashi seems to be missing from our apartment." He paused to laugh. "Have you seen him?"

The sudden change in expression on his almost-son's face was shocking to Iruka, who had never seen him look so devastatingly hurt, or at least not since Sasuke.

Naruto stared at him for a moment, a look of understanding (…and pity?) locked in his gaze. "Yeah… yeah. I think I saw him down by the memorial stone. He's there every morning, you know…"

Iruka nodded, still worried about Naruto's sudden change in mood, but happy that he now had a direction. "Thanks Naruto. Get some sleep, okay? You're not yourself." He stayed long enough to catch Naruto's slow nod, a glum expression still in place, before Iruka was bounding down the street.

Sakura wasn't at Ichiraku Ramen when he passed it again, he noticed. Instead, a full bowl of ramen sat out on the counter. Ayame, one of the people who ran the ramen stand, stood behind the counter as she stared at it. She (just like the rest of the village he was now realising after his visit with Naruto) also looked sad.

Shaking his head, Iruka continued on to the memorial stone. He could see the Hokage mountains from where he was, and he smiled with pride up at the Sandaime's face. "Hello again," he said, nodding at it.

Looking around, he couldn't see the copy-nin around. Sighing in resignation, Iruka walked up to the stone anyway. He gazed upon the names carved in to granite, feeling happiness and bitter sadness well up in his chest at the same time. His father's name was the first one on there, followed by his mother's. He saw Asuma's name, and Hayate's… too many of Konoha were lost, he thought, dragging his finger upon the letters of his mother's name.

His eyes trailed further downwards, to the more recent names, and his breath hitched. He fell down on to the grass and, eyes wide, gasped for breath.

_Ah, yes, _he thought. _I forgot. I guess I…_

Now everything made perfect sense, and he grit his teeth as the unwelcome memories floated back to him. He had naively hoped it was all a nightmare.

Crawling forward, he ignored the tear that rolled down his cheek as his fingers brushed against the most recent name added. The most recent, but he knew it wouldn't be the last. "There you are," he whispered. "Good morning. I love you."

_Hatake Kakashi_


End file.
